Category: Year 1

This is the parent category of all courses taken in year 1.

String Theory

Posted on Posted in Integrative Studio 2, Portfolio, Year 1Leave a comment

Concept

String Theory was based on the concept of revealing and concealing. As I delved into the research of the theoretical physics’ String Theory in Seminar II, I realized that there is so much more than what meets the eye… that true beauty lies in what you cannot see. The String Theory is “based on the existence of cosmic strings,” as defined by Google Dictionary. It involves the notion that there are 10 extra dimensions to the universe. These strings of energy, called superstrings,  are what formed the basis of my design through the exposed stitching. I wanted to emulate energetic vibrations and the connectivity of the whole universe, while also portraying the freedom of becoming yourself. In the end we are all part of the same universal energy, but unique in that we can use it to be who we want to be. The issue is that people have a tendency to go against their own nature in order to fit in. Thus, by melting away of the plastic layer of the bodice, I am showing how the not-so-pleasing superficial layers of a person can be stripped away (after awakening and seeing the grand scheme of the world for the first time) in order to free the supreme and organic self.

Method

I first developed the pattern digitally through Adobe Illustrator for the first time. After printing, I cut the pattern pieces out of the fabric and water soluble interfacing. I stitched on top of water soluble interface, lined with regular interfacing for rigidity while sewing, in a grid-like fashion for the bottom 3/4 of the bodice and randomly on the top 1/4 of the bodice. After doing so for all pattern pieces of the bodice, I removed the regular interfacing grid by grid as to not rip the stitching. I did a two layer skirt for more opacity and more flow. I used silver and blue-silver decorative thread for the rolled hem and overlocking to give a starry appearance to the navy blue skirt. I attached the skirt and bodice together using a zipper.

Materials

Product

Visual Essay- String Theory: What is Real?

Posted on Posted in Academic Orientation Fall 2017, Integrative Seminar 2, Portfolio, Year 1Leave a comment

For the Visual Essay for Seminar II, I initially wanted to focus on the aspects of friendship and how it has been affected by technology. However, upon knowing that I would have to stick to this topic till the end of the semester, I decided to focus on a topic in which I was deeply interested and in what I already had background knowledge. Thusly, I decided to talk about what we perceive to be real and the true reality of our world. This topic gave me the leeway to delve into spiritual, scientific, and personal subtopics that form this big idea. By sourcing information from various first-hand accounts, personal accounts, and secondary sources; I was able to not only develop my visual essay but get the chance to expand my own knowledge in my true interests rather than being prompted to write about something in particular. This insight that I have gotten allowed me to more deeply analyze my own perception of the world, as human beings tend to forget the impacts such knowledge can have on a person. The visual essay evolved from a powerpoint presentation with graphics to eventually a small book. The book cover is of a detail photo from the the garment I made in Studio II. I inverted the colors to make for a cosmic-like web to compliment the concept from which it was derived.

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STRING THEORY BOOK COVER op-20pmi6z

String Theory text op-25gieyc

Visual Essay- Evolution of the Human Body

Posted on Posted in Integrative Studio 2, Portfolio, Year 11 Comment

This assignment consisted of the deconstruction of an item or concept with a significant prevalence throughout history. I concentrated on the concept of transforming the human body by means of adoration, clothing, accessories, etc. This interest was sparked by a trip to Thailand, where I saw many Kinari statue in the Grand Palace wearing ear cuffs. I later found out that these ear cuffs were known as Kaffas and are part of the traditional Thai dress. However, seeing such accessories on a statue hundreds of years old made me wonder how the far into the future the human mind perceives, and how there has always been some desire in humans to elevate or reconfigure the body through accessories, clothing, and even surgical procedures. I first created the mood board below to convey this concept to the class. I later expanded on the history, present, and potential future course of this concept in a visual essay format in order to study how this is so heavily engrained into humankind. For the mood board, I used Photoshop to cut the subjects from the backgrounds, and to adjust the tones. I then processed and laid out all the images into a collage on Illustrator and used various tools to add accents such as lines and paint. For the Visual Essay, I used InDesign and created my own layout using a grid to make sure all pages are consistent.

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Landscape Collage with Figure

Posted on Posted in Drawing+Imaging, Portfolio, Year 11 Comment

As the class stepped into the unit of perspective drawing, we started out by making collages that gave the illusion of depth.

The first step was to make tonal drawings of a model using “boxy,” “mapping,” and “naturalistic” techniques. This step was important in getting students familiar with shading and how contrast of light should be treated in a drawing. For instance, the lighter side of a subject should be accompanied by a darker background, whereas the darker side could havea lighter background. These are some examples of my tonal drawings:

We were then asked to choose one or more of our figure drawings to include in a landscape collage. We worked with various materials like decorative paper, textures, and mark-making to create a collage that conveyed a sense of 3-dimensional depth. Since this project was basically a study of how we see space, I literally thought of space and decided to base my collage on that idea. I wanted to create a sense of infinite space by repeating the same image of the large figure at bottom in smaller figures above, and using different decorative papers and prints to make the moon and planets. I reduced the size of the upper figures and planets and placed them in an S-shape to evoke a sense of depth.

 

White and Ambiguous Figures

Posted on Posted in Drawing+Imaging, Portfolio, Year 1Leave a comment

This project consisted of a multistep process that integrated physical and digital work. The object was to make two compositions, one with a white figure on a black background and one with an ambiguous figure/ground relationship. Both compositions were to use the same negative shapes from a montage combining drawings of stools and a nude model.

The first step in the process was to draw the model and the stools. By doing so, the students strengthened how well they translated what they saw onto paper. We used a helpful method to scale the various components of what we were looking at by using a pencil to compare the sizes of various parts. Also, it helped to first draw a mini version of the objects before beginning the actual drawing. Afterwards, we scanned the drawings and edited them in Photoshop to clean them up and make the negative spaces white. Below is the edited image of the stools… unfortunately there is no image of the figure alone but you can view it in the composition of the stools and the figure in the next step.

Next was to combine the edited images of the stools and figure into an Illustrator file in an interesting way that would create at least 15 decent-sized shapes out of the negative space. We “carved” out the negative spaces using the pen tool and added a white fill to them. Here I’m showing the negative shapes with a colored fill to make them more visible.

The final step was to create two 10 x 10-inch art boards in Illustrator with black backgrounds. Once that was done, it was time to start laying out the white shapes from the stool and figure composition to create new compositions. The two images had to use the same shapes, at the same size, with minimal overlapping. It took a lot of experimenting to make both images properly fit within the frame size and be appealing with such restrictions. However, doing so improved our skills in working with restrictions, which are often faced in real-world situations. Below are the final figures (left is the “white figure” and the right is the “ambiguous composition”).

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FREYA: Branding- Perfume Bridge Project

Posted on Posted in Integrative Seminar 1, Integrative Studio 1, Portfolio, Year 11 Comment

 

 

The second studio/seminar bridge assignment entailed creating a dream brand and designing a product (a scent as the standard for this project) in order to build on our artistic skills. Not only did we have to create a brand that was targeted toward a particular audience, but we also had to conceptualize what kind of scent would appeal to this audience. Seeing as I was working opening my own clothing brand prior to the project, I had an easy time deciding upon the type of brand I wanted and the intent of such a brand. I knew that I wanted to focus on empowering the public, maintaining a meaningful message behind every design, and leaving a positive imprint in the world. All of this can be reduced to faith and spirituality which I like to see from various perspectives by studying different mythologies and belief systems. The one that I grew greatly fond of is Norse Mythology for its incredible stories and deities that are meant to resemble humans. Thusly, I named my brand after the Norse Goddess Freya, who represents love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold, magic, war, and death. I included all of these ideals and spiritual context into my manifesto which is meant to relay that sense of power even in the most dainty beauty.

I abstracted my logo from the Valknut, a Norse symbol of folk-remembrance, sacrifice, honour, dedication, and love for those who die in battle for our people. This is considered to be the truest act of love. Of course I do not want people to think that you must die to show your love. Rather, I took a more metaphorical and modern take on this act of dying for the greater good, where one is destined to endure many struggles on a mission to bring beauty to the world. In an aesthetic sense, I made the Valknut in my logo look less ancient and rugged to fit more with my brand. Once I was satisfied with my branding, I started on my product.

As a child, I was always intrigued by the Harajuku Lovers perfumes and how each scent had its own character. At the same time I wanted to work with the celestial aspect that comes with spirituality and Norse mythology. As I looked to the stars, I remembered the Pleiades Constellation (part of the Taurus horoscope and also my sign) has an alternate name: “Freya’s Hens”. I integrated ancient-old Greek myth of how Zeus transformed 7 nymphs, also daughters of Atlas (Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope), into stars to mourn their father after he was sentenced to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. I then married all of these disparate inspirations and ideas into one: I chose the 4 brightest stars in the Pleiades constellation, researched the traits of each mythological character with which it is associated, and created 4 different scents based on their traits. Then came the bottle design. I found an image of Freya online where she wore a winged helmet and her wings were also extended in a semicircle. After many iterations, I used a semilunar shape to represent her wings and the feathers on her helmet. I carefully chose the colors of the bottles based on the characteristics of each “star” as well. Though I created labels for the bottles, they seemed to take away from the overall “look” of the bottle. So, I decided to have the bottles engraved with the names of the scents. I also chose to name the line of scents “M45”, another name for the Pleiades constellation, to give a more prestigious ring to the name.

I continued the semi-circle shape into the design of the box. The construction of the box is when I learned many valuable skills including practicing intermediate techniques in wood-making, planning for every failure accordingly, and maintaining an unfaltering confidence that everything will work out as imagined. The same goes for the process of creating my display. As time trickled away with life bringing many unprecedented distractions (like the horrific flood in my dorm and late material shipments), I knew I had to let my ambition sizzle down and come to terms with areas in which I would not be able to excel as far as I had hoped. Nevertheless, I did my best to make my vision come to life and was still glad that I got to experiment with a new material—plexiglass— and laser cutting. Now I know which mistakes not to repeat again, such as always measuring and remeasuring, taking precautions to ensure a clean end result, and researching any new material before working with it.

Last but not least, I created both a magazine and billboard ad that would capture the essence of the brand. At first, I had a messy, unprofessional edit of an aurora in the background of a not-so-great picture. With more rummaging through the pictures from the photoshoot, which also took a lot of planning and coordinating, and help from my peers I found the perfect set of images that I chose to edit. The slogan for the ad campaign pretty much came to be from the top of my head and I stuck with it because it felt most right. This time around while editing the photos, I made sure to not edit out the nature background and keep it as high-fashion magazine as possible and eventually I was ecstatic at the results. To elaborate more on the photoshoot process, I first had to find the perfect models that would encapsulate the image of each Pleiades star. Then, I made sure to plan with a lot of time ahead in case of any weather issues- which in fact did occur and the girls were more than willing to accommodate on different days. Throughout the days leading up to the photoshoot, I worked on the models’ costumes in order for them all to fit the aesthetic of Norse goddesses even more so. I searched up many inspirations for makeup and hair beforehand and by the time the day of the photoshoot came, everything was ready. I got everyone dressed and made up just in time for the “golden hour” for photo-shooting. Overall, I impressed myself with the amount of work I was able to get done and obstacles I overcame with so little experience. This was my first true test at what still awaits me in the future.

Observing Life

Posted on Posted in Academic Orientation Fall 2017, Portfolio, Time, Year 1Leave a comment

For this video, I focused on the idea of people dwelling on the past and how living your memories can take a toll on your mental and physical health. This something that has been engrained into society- to think and rethink about past events- and something that we almost innately impose onto ourselves. Often times you see people lost in thought- where their mind is at is not always clear but somehow thinking of the past often leaves a person melancholic, fearful, and disappointed. Though memories are not always bad, they can become that simply by overthinking and letting current emotions weigh you down so that joyous moments become memories you never want to visit again in order to save yourself the pain of having those times slip away.

https://vimeo.com/240598822

My first iteration of the video focused on a complete different aspect of life. It was meant to be about the feelings and sensations that one experiences throughout his or her workout.

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Then, I changed my entire concept to make it more widely-relatable, whereas the prior idea would only appeal to athletes. While thinking of how I would relay the messaged I described earlier, I experimented with various effects and filming angles to capture just that. In my final storyboard, I wrote out all the effects I would use such as the strobe effect and transparency to create a distortion in time, an overlapping of the past and present, and revival of old memories that almost seem to flash through or linger within your head.

NeymanLeana-Storyboard-1zv4uro

 

 

OBSERVING THE CITY

Posted on Posted in Academic Orientation Fall 2017, Portfolio, Time, Year 1Leave a comment

The movement of time and its effect on everyday things can be best observed in an environment where hundreds of events are happening simultaneously, such as the city. By taking pictures from various stances consistently every 10 seconds for 5 minutes each position, I noticed how the perception of time changes from scene to scene, and from object to object. While taking zoomed-out photographs of a busy street (6th ave between Washington and Waverly Pl. in particular), I saw that a lot of movement and the occurrence of many instances at one time and space gives the perception that time is extremely fleeting. As soon as the next photograph is taken after 10 seconds, so much already changes from the last photograph: the people, the position of things, etc. But while many things may change, some things just seem to stay static. When zooming into these almost static objects, such as plants, it seems as though time is at a standstill. Although in the zoomed-out images the subject was the street, the objects within the street created a story though the composition of all the different impressions they gave of time. Thusly, the zoomed in images simply show a closer look at just one of those small aspects of the street to reveal more about the effects of time that particular subject. The compilation of the 5 min, 10 second interval pictures of different subjects (zoomed in and zoomed out) can all be viewed in these following images:

After compiling all the consecutive images of each scene, it was time to make a composition of the pictures in each scene of the block to give an overall or particular description of the block. In the draft, I mostly used color grouping to relay a how despite the constant movement of time and the changes that come with it, one thing that seems to stay constant is color; and many times color is one method of how we categorize memories (color is linked with memories). In the final “block grid”, I again used color but reduced it to the two main colors that remind me of the street: light blue, dark blue, and red. The text in the center of the grid is the main indicator of that block because the billboard from which its taken sizes up to almost a third of the space. Also, it is the one thing that remains constant, despite the continuous movement of people along the street.

Finally, I created a linear reading of the block to document how layout can also change how time reads. As opposed to the grid, where everything is happening everywhere at once, the linear reading shows one portion of the block. I created an almost panoramic view by combining images from two different scenes that I photographed. I focused on incorporating the colors red and blue and showing how time can still appear differently no matter the distance from one space to another. By extending the length of the van, I showed how time seems to drag by when waiting on the stop light, whereas the combination of the black and red car depict the sudden change of subject that can happen at the blink of an eye once the cars begin to move. For the final linear composition, I chose to revolve around the theme that being and living amidst all the chaos going on, rather than observing, no one seems to notice the things surrounding them. Everyone is always so much in their own world, in their own thoughts, in their own agendas, that the things around them just swift right by them and past their “point of view”. I put a lot of attention towards the center of the page to emulate a person’s vision when in a situation like this. Towards the sides, I added fade to show how everything to the side of your focus “brushes past you” as it fades into your peripheral vision and eventually into nothingness. 

 

Color Theory- Down the Rabbit Hole

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Colors evoke a multitude of emotions, remind us of a certain memory, and even hold various symbols. In testing out color theory, I recreated an object from childhood to which I have an emotional attachment as a face mask, using the same color scheme. The reason is that the colors (chocolate brown and baby pink) are distinct to the object and thusly make me think of it almost instantly. However, I wanted to depict more than just the memory of the object (the rabbit) through the colors. I wanted to capture how my feelings have changed over time towards this old stuffed animal. In recent times, I associate the rabbit with melancholy purples and shades of gray, for it only reminds me of a blurry past that overall consisted of me being sick. On the other hand, during the time that I deeply treasured this toy for bringing me joy at my toughest times, I’d see warm tones of yellow and orange. But the gray would always remain because it was still an item I’d use to “absorb” all my pain.